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The Adventures of Mark Twain

Sol Polito could shoot anything. During his 35-year career, the
Italian-born cameraman filmed toe-tapping chorines in 42nd Street
(1933), a folk legend come to life in The Adventures of Robin Hood
(1938) and dueling divas Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins in Old
Acquaintance (1943), all at Warner Bros. The studio's leading ladies
loved him because he knew how to make them look young and appealing no matter
how old and tired they got. On The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944),
however, he did the reverse. He helped Fredric March age 75 years for one of the actor's
most famous portrayals.

It seemed that nobody but Jesse L. Lasky wanted to make The Adventures
of Mark Twain. After scoring a hit with another American legend in
Sergeant York (1941), he fought for a year to convince Warner Bros.
to back a screen biography of the noted writer and humorist. Director
Irving Rapper wasn't interested in making the film until he learned that
his friend, March, was the first choice to star. March had been suggested
by Twain's only living daughter, Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch, who informed
Lasky that she would not help with the picture unless March played her
father. But even with such a stirring endorsement, March had his doubts.
He only accepted the role after the makeup department shot a test in which
he played Twain at 65. When a shot of March in make-up was released to the
papers, Twain's daughter thought somebody had discovered another archival
photo of her father.

March set out to learn all he could about Twain, a daunting task
considering that the studio's research department had assembled a 72 page
bibliography on the man, not to mention finding 2,345 photos and conducting
interviews with 148 people who had known or observed him. One of those was
actor C. Aubrey Smith, who had seen Twain accept an honorary degree at
Oxford. In the film, he would play the Oxford chancellor conferring that
degree.

March spent 12 weeks working with the make-up department to develop Twain's
look for the various ages depicted in the film. Since Twain's nose seemed
to change shape over time, they created three different noses for March to
wear at different ages. March also pored over the single piece of film on
Twain, a 100-foot newsreel. After speaking to many who had known Twain and
hearing contradictory accounts of his speech patterns, he put their
testimonies together, deciding that he would start speaking slowly until he
was sure his listener was following him. Then he would speed up to match
the rhythm noted by other witnesses. Years later he would confess to
missing one of Twain's mannerisms, his habit of playing with the bottom of
his shirtsleeve. He would also praise Hal Holbrook for incorporating that
in his award-winning stage performance in Mark Twain
Tonight.

Although the film was shot largely on the Warner Bros. back lot, second
unit crews captured footage of Twain's hometown, Hannibal, Mo.; the study
in his farm in Elmira, N.Y.; and his home in Hartford, Conn. The
Mississippi River shown in the film was actually a studio miniature,
complete with rotting stumps along the shore and a model version of the
paddle wheeler Twain saw destroyed during the Civil War. The special
effects department also aided in the dramatization of Twain's story, "The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," and created animated versions
of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, all of which helped the film score an
Oscar® nomination for Best Special Effects.

Although The Adventures of Mark Twain was finished in 1942, it sat
on the shelf for almost two years as the studio focused on releasing
pictures about World War II while they were still timely. After completing
a USO tour, however, March urged Warner's to release the film to military
audiences because of its sense of American history. The GIs saw the
picture in March 1944, with a theatrical release finally scheduled two
months later. Critics lauded March's performance, though they found the
film overly episodic as it tried to capture events from several periods
of Twain's life. However, over time, the film and March's performance have
attracted a devoted following, largely through television
presentations.